1 Year Anniversary of the Nick Punto Trade

I think it's tough to say the Dodgers are happy with this move. They also added Hanley Ramirez, Yasiel Puig, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Ricky Nolasco, and to a lesser degree Brandon League and Brian Wilson. So overall they are happy, but that one move is only a small part of it.

I'm still a fan of it for the Red Sox. They are already better than they were last season. The trade helped them shed salary and end up with a better draft slot. Plus, Webster and De La Rosa will contribute in some way, even if it ends up being in a bullpen role.

FTHW nailed it, this was not a short term trade for the Sox. Also, if and its a decent size if, RDLR and Webster do end up in the pen, I doubt we're talking about run of the mill pen arms here.

Who wanted to keep Crawford? If anything getting rid of him ang getting decent prospects was a miracle.

The only draw back to me last year was losing Gonzales but as someone later made me realize it was nescesary in order to get rid of Crawford.

I still can't believe this was a real thing that happened.

Also, can we please stop calling it the Punto Trade, it was mildly amusing for about half a second.

I usually agree with your posts but not this one.

Crawford has a terrible contract and as someone else pointed out, victorino is a better player with a better contract.

As bad as Demps has been, he has been better than Beckett this year and he is gone after next year as the Sox transition in some of their homegrown players.

González was pretty good but he was still overpaid. The Sox can still spend that money on a different power hitting 1Baseman. There are quite a few of them. Hopefully the Sox can get Abreu, which would make this trade look even better.

Webster and RDLR are gravy.

The Trade definitely felt like addition by subtraction.

I was above all thrilled to see the contract of Carl Crawford gotten rid of. I was happy to see Beckett go. Never wanted Nick Punto in the first place. And long-term I felt that sooner or later the Gonzalez deal would be a major overpay. That kind of money for the 30 - 40 HR guy he was - great! For a 20 HR guy whose OBP and slugging was declining and whose batting average would eventually decline, not so great - and it's obvious his best power days are behind him.

In 2013 there's no doubt that the Sox could use Gonzalez. He'd be an improvement over Napoli, no doubt. And in 2013 I have no doubt the Dodgers are loving the deal. Gonzalez is a vast improvement over what James Loney was giving them and Carl Crawford has been giving them a good season - his defense isn't what it once was, but his offense has been closer to what he was in Tampa, which is to say decent, but not $20 million/year good. He's ridiculously overpriced but the Dodgers are getting results with Crawford and Gonzalez. Even Nick Punto has been a little bit useful for the Dodgers. Only Beckett has been a complete bust. In 2013 this is a great deal for the Dodgers who basically print money. Going forward the deal could be a major anchor for the Dodgers, but given their lack of payroll limits, they might not notice.

In 2013 the Red Sox spent that money on a lot of quantity which spanned the full range of quality.

They spent a bunch of money on a short-term innings eater mediocre pitcher in Dempster, added a veteran slugger in Napoli who apparently is on his last legs as a player and will not be good enough to generate a QO. Fortunately for the Sox, instead of it being a 3 year $39 million disaster, the deal will be just for one year. They spent $39 million on Shane Victorino who is so so offensively and lacks power that you'd want for a corner OF, but is an absolutely brilliant RF who's probably playing the best RF defensively for the Sox since a young Dwight Evans (and that counts JD Drew who was a good RF). They got their value from him this year, but with the all-out play like there's no tomorrow style of play he has it's hard to see him play as well or even as often over the next couple of years as he ages.

The Red Sox signed David Ross for two years and it's unknown if they'll get those two years from him given what he's gone through. They signed Jonny Gomes to 2 years $10 million and he's been decent overall, and particularly amazing in key spots late in the game. And they got good value out of Drew who has raised his level of play lately and that should snare them a draft pick once they offer him a QO. And they did pick up Mike Carp for nothing and he has certainly played well enough that it makes you question why they don't play him more often.

Their best signing was grabbing Uehara who I expected to be good, but not Dennis Eckersley the Closer good. If the Rangers hadn't been dumb enough to leave him off the roster in 2011, they would have won the World Series!

They also used the money to "upgrade" from Melancon in the bullpen to Joel Hanrahan, which certainly wasn't an upgrade and they used the additional money to get a quality innings eater in Jake Peavy.

They basically filled a lot of holes with average players whose value is being much better than the replacement filler performers that they had in 2012.

They also picked up James Loney (who's having a good season for Tampa) who did nothing for the Sox, DeJesus and Sands who were part of that ill fated Hanrahan deal, and the prizes of the deal Allen Webster and Ruby De La Rosa, both of whom will contribute very little to the Red Sox in 2013 unfortunately.

Long-term what really makes the deal for the Sox is how they use the financial flexibility going forward and if Webster and/or De La Rosa pan out. At best, Webster harnesses his control and can be a middle of the rotation starter and De La Rosa can be a Daniel Bard circa 2010 or even an eventual closer (I'm convinced he's not a starter and that the Sox have better options in the minors for starters).

At worst (and my fear about these two right now) these are guys with great arms who cannot throw enough strikes with those arms and never really amount to anything.

But if going forward these guys develop (and it's way too early to give up on them), and if the Sox can use the money saved wisely (if they can get Abreu for instance), then the deal goes from being a get out jail free card to being one of the best of all time for the franchise.

Would I do this deal again given the circumstances? Heck yeah!

I'll say it again: Crawford is a grade A asshole. I hope he continues to be the lousy overpaid player that he is, but at least I'm glad he's not in Boston anymore.

About the trade, fenwaythehardway pretty much nailed everything I think about it (and we used to disagree so much, damn).

Carl Crawford can complain all he wants. He was terrible in Boston. TERRIBLE. Crawford has been better in LA, but Shane Victorino has been as good with the bat, better on the base paths, and much better defensively with a better arm.

Oh, and Victorino is much cheaper.

Crawford for Hanley - man, I would've be up for that.

There are a couple of assumptions here that I am not sure hold.

First that the Red Sox will just be able to roll over the money coming off the books into quality players. I am not sure this is true. The trend has been towards lower and lower quality free agent classes as due to revenue sharing players are more likely to sign extensions.

Secondly, I am not sure that comp picks will be as forthcoming as you think. Picks are now more valuable because they represent not just the player picked, but also a salary slot. Teams are less likely to give them up and if they do, there is a major salary hit for all but the best players. Bourne got an AAV of $12M and Lohse less than $11M. Would these players have been better off accepting the QOs their original teams offered? Perhaps.

That is the real reason the Dodgers made this trade. Yes the Dodgers are ridiculously overpaying for Gonzalez and Crawford. But look around the free agent market. There isn't a player like Gonzalez available either this off-season or next. I'm sorry but I'd rather have Gonzalez than a Cuban defector who has never played in the majors.

It's really the top end of the market that's suffered, not the bargain bin. You're always going to have a healthy class of guys that teams didn't want to give qualifying offers to.



I'm not too worried about that, either. The impact of losing a comp pick isn't going to be felt for years, and there's always going to be GMs who are worried about their jobs right now. It's not like the Sox are going to be able to rake in picks like in the days Theo trading for Billy Wagner, but there's always going to be teams willing to mortgage their futures. As for players, I think contract length tends to mean a lot more to them than a marginal difference ins AAV. I doubt Bourne is wishing away his four year deal so he could be making an extra $1.5m this season.



Well, if the trade was JUST Gonzalez, that statement might make sense. But it wasn't. It was giving up a somewhat reasonable contract (that's still likely to be a terrible contract within a few years) in Gonzalez while also unloading a bad contract in Crawford and complete dead weight in Beckett. But you know, contrarians gotta contrary...